Datto partners with Zendesk to create intelligent support solutions

Data security is serious business, and thousands of companies worldwide rely on Datto to protect their data from IT disasters, human error, hackers, and other malicious activity. Headquartered in Connecticut and with offices around the globe, Datto partners with Managed Services providers who deliver IT services to businesses via Datto’s total data protection, backup and disaster recovery, and managed networking products.

Since 2013, Datto has turned to Zendesk to connect with customers through a variety of channels including web ticketing, live chat, and a knowledge base.

Over the years, Datto has also leaned on Zendesk to help internal teams communicate with each other, including finance, training, and their Roundtrip team, who works closely with support and uses Zendesk Support to track hardware requests. When Datto acquired two other companies, Backupify and Open Mesh, it was a happy coincidence that both companies also used Zendesk Support, which contributed to a more seamless transition.

Even so, Datto did its due diligence to make sure it was using the best solution. “As we’ve grown, we have taken the time to look at other vendors to see what else is out in the marketplace, but we’ve consistently come back to Zendesk,” said Jason Elston, Datto’s senior director of North American tech support.

“I tend to think 90% of the ticketing systems in the world have the same basic functionalities, so it boils down to the vendor relationship and responsiveness, and whether you feel like you have a true partner who’s going to help when you need it. We certainly feel that partnership with Zendesk, which makes it an easy decision to stick with Zendesk.”

Elston put Zendesk to the test when he needed help problem-solving some issues when his team was rolling out live chat. “We were a bit late to the live chat game,” he said. “As we ran into roadblocks, Zendesk’s Customer Success team not only provided engineering resources, but also put me in touch with like-minded peers. This two-pronged approach is a great illustration of our relationship with Zendesk and why their partnership is the differentiator.”

Another major factor in Datto’s success with Zendesk is how easily Zendesk can integrate with internally-developed tools. The team has used Zendesk’s flexible API to integrate an automated bot for intelligent routing of ticket assignments—a process that was previously handled by 20 supervisors across all shifts, all watching the queue and manually triaging tickets. They’ve also created a global customer experience dashboard that pulls detailed data from Zendesk Support and that allows them to drill down into ticket volume and data by team, by product, and by various ticket groupings.

“Everything is tied into Zendesk,” Elston said. “We’ve built systems that not only feed off Zendesk triggers, but also tie back into Zendesk in multiple ways. It’s been so easy—we’ve had a lot of wins.”

Since implementing Zendesk, Datto can better track and dig deeper into key metrics such as ticket resolution time, which they’ve been able to systematically reduce. They’ve also seen their average customer satisfaction (CSAT) ratings climb to 93.5 percent. Since they were measuring NPS prior to using Zendesk, it was a great discovery to learn their CSAT hovers consistently above 90 percent.

Better still, Elston said, the Support and Chat analytics allow him to track metrics by agent, location, and other data points. “We’re able to see trends,” he said. “That level of granularity allows us to understand where and why we aren’t performing as well as we’d like. It also helps us to see where we are performing well, and we can learn from that.”

The team is always pushing to optimize their use of Zendesk products and to create better relationships with their customers. “Working with Zendesk, it truly feels like we’re pushing the envelope together,” Elston said. “Zendesk’s never-give-up attitude, the sense that there’s always something that can be done, really echoes the Datto mindset.”

“The willingness to be our partner, to listen and hear us out and come up with solutions, is the thing we appreciate most about Zendesk—that relationship and responsiveness.”